Thursday, February 5, 2009

Barack Obama / Washington Post:The Action Americans Need — By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished.

Blue Dogs push back against stimulus — Conservative Democrats in the House are pushing back against their leaders' economic stimulus plan even as President Obama steps up his push for the spending package. — The leadership of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative Democrats concerned …

50 De-Stimulating Facts — Senate Democrats acknowledged Wednesday that they do not have the votes to pass the stimulus bill in its current form. This is unexpected good news. The House passed the stimulus package with zero Republican votes (and even a few Democratic defections) …

Financial Times:GE chief warns on US depression threat -- The US economy is suffering its steepest downturn since at least the 1970s and could descend into a depression, Jeff Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, warned on Thursday.

He said businesses and consumers alike were struggling to contend with tumultuous markets and a financial-services industry under siege.

“Unlike the other downturns that I’ve been a part of, this one is faced with limited liquidity,” Mr Immelt, GE’s chief since 2001 told a conference. “Once you break through ’74-’75, you don’t stop ’til you get to 1929.”...

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Madoff Ponzi

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com:Court Filings Show Real Estate Families’ Madoff Losses-- New York’s real estate industry is not only coping with a troubled market that shows few signs of life in the coming months and even years. Now some of the city’s most prominent real estate figures have been hit with a double whammy. Many of them are investors and now appear to be victims of Bernard L. Madoff...

Prince Michael of Yugoslavia was an executive of a so-called Madoff feeder fund, Access International Advisors Ltd., when he met Prince Charles and his sons at a polo field during a marketing tour in 2002, Markopolos said...

Bespoke:Worst Post-Election Day Returns Since At Least 1900 -- Not many people thought that running the country was going to be an easy job for President Obama, and based on the Dow's returns since election day, the market doesn't think so either. Below we highlight the performance of the Dow this many days past election day for all Presidential elections since 1900. As shown, the Dow's decline of 17.78% since Obama's election 93 days ago is the index's biggest drop following any election in the last 108 years...

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CNNMoney:Mortgage rates hit six week high -- The 30-year fixed rate jumped to 5.70%, and more volatility is expected as Senate debates the economic stimulus package...